Never knew my Grandparents. I'm a grandma and am not crabby

My in-laws (since passed on) were the worse grandparents (mostly mean though).

Sheryl - NJ

My mom's mom was mean. My mom said she had always been mean. She was a very stubborn German woman who came to the U.S. alone at 16 to join other relatives in Iowa.

My father's mother was not friendly on her best day, and crabby on average, but never mean (well, not maliciously). Based on what my mother said, she was always like that (she was 40-45 when my mother first met her). She liked her own siblings, husband and children...she just didn't care about anyone else. She wasn't "mean", but this was just this feeling that she really didn't care about us at all.

didn't have crabby gtandmothers, just a crabby fil, lol...

A hard life sets it off, for one thing.

If you live long enough and suffer enough, you may get crabby. ;)

Wow, I hope my grandbabies never think of me as "crabby." I won't mind if they refer to me as their "crazy" Nana, since I act completely silly when we're together.

I was really kind of referring to the women that were spoke of in that obituary thread. Seems like a few of you knew someone old and crabby.

I'm just curious because my own grandmother was a HOOT till the day she died at 89. I hope I can be that kind of "old lady". :)

I never knew my father's parents or my mother's father, but I did know my mother's mother. She remarried after my mother's father died and had another daughter. My aunt is only nine months older than I am and grandmother focused on raising her. She wasn't mean or nasty to me, she was just indifferent. Vique

I only understood my grandmothers after I started doing genealogy. As a child I thought they were both 'stern' and I thought my maternal grandmother was a suspicious, miserly woman.

My paternal grandmother had seven children and lost her favorite boy at age seven (adrenal failure). She herself was the only surviving adult child of her mother's six children after one brother died at 22 in an accident. Another brother died in his teens. The rest never reached age three. (This explains why children were just called "Baby" until the next baby was coming. You learn to 'distance' yourself a little against the likely loss ahead.) Her parents begged her to refuse the nice suitor back in their native Pennsylvania and to marry my grandfather -- so they could keep her near them in the West. (My G-Grandfather was an MD in silver mining towns in Colorado after leaving PA.) My grandfather was a pompous fool who couldn't provide for his family. The family moved often, just ahead of the landlord. Her life was misery, yet she took the dope back after he'd left her to fend for herself and the children during the Depression.

My maternal grandmother came to NYC from Scotland via Ireland at 16, along with her widowed mother and her brother. A relative had come before them and sent money for their passage. They were bone thin and barely educated. She worked in a laundry, ironing. She met and married my grandfather and had lost one newborn before my mother was born. They took her ailing mother and brother to live on a hardscrabble farm in RI just to get out of the city. Her mother and brother died of TB within months of one another. My grandfather had a stroke and lingered until his death during the Depression. Grandmother never spoke of ANY of this right up to her death in her nineties. I had to learn it piece by piece from records, letters and old photographs.

"Crabby"? Heck, how did they keep on at all?

I'm not crabby! I'm fun! At least that's what my GS says.
Going on 71 here.

chisue - you should write a book!! Seriously!!! Sounds very interesting! I can't fathom some of those hardships! And to think she never spoke of this stuff?? She must've been one tough cookie!

I don't think you have to be old to be crabby. I also don't think old is measured in years. I've met people that were "old ladies" when they were in their forties and I have friends who are in their eighties that I don't consider old. It's a state of mind...a personality thing.

My grandma is old and crabby, LOL. I think she's always just been a crabby, unhappy person. I think it just depends on the person, and age or sex has nothing to do with it.

There's probably different reasons. I never knew either of my grandmothers, but I do have some crabby, older female relatives.

From what I can see, they're intelligent, proud women who were spoiled by their husbands. Nothing will be good enough for them. Not even their offspring.

They outlive their spouses but never remarry, because frankly, who would put up with them.

I'm one of those that posted that I have a mean ol' Nana. :) Like someone else said, she had a haaard life. Interesting! But hard. I don't blame her, but you've got to watch out for her because her other side will come out and rake you over the coals for no reason! She was an Hispanic woman who married an Irishman when she was in her teens. She and her family lied about her age so she could marry my Grampa. She was pregnant at the time with her uncle's child and then my Grampa turned around and molested my mom when she was a teen. It was a sick and twisted life for my mom and all her brothers. I just feel sorry for them (and especially my mom who became an alcoholic over it all).

I had to go through years and years of counseling to escape the bad habits and dysfunction that I grew up with in my own family. I didn't want to continue that with my own children. This is all just surface level stuff, but I did want to convey that if someone has gone through life after living through Hell, you might just publish something like what that lady posted in the newspaper.

Now my dad's mother and father are Heaven-sent and we live near them. They're precious and have lots to do in our lives! : D God really blessed our entire family with them.

Blessings,
Haley

Haley - all I can say is "WOW".....I can't fathom that kind of life! I had the Beaver Cleaver; all American life. I'm glad you were able to get counseling and stop the cycle of dysfunction.

My paternal grandmother lived next door to us when I was a small child. She passed away when I was six, so most of this information was passed down from my mother, who was a piece of work herself.
My grandma used to call the funeral parlor in town and ask, "Who do you have in?" She also saved all Christmas and birthday clothing gifts to "be buried in". If she was buried in all that clothing, the casket would have been a double-wide.
After dinner (lunch to Yankees) she would set the table for supper (dinner to Yankees) and put a lightweight table cloth over the whole thing, butter dish, pickle dish, everything!
She wasn't crabby especially, just a little weird. I've always been a little sorry I missed knowing her better.

My Mom always says that just because men or women get old doesn't make them "sweet little old ladies or men". She says if they were mean and hateful before - they probably just get worse with time.

I'm a grandmother (they range in age from middle twenties to six) and I don't believe any of them would call my crabby. I'm always interested in what they are doing and enjoy the uniqueness of each one. Some of their friends call me "Grandma" also and like to "hang out" with us. I hope that never changes!!

Mine were both crabby and old. I think they had hard lives each with five kids, maternal one lost her first daughter at one. I was thinking when I was on the treadmill at the gym the other day... when my grandmothers were my age, they mostly sat in rockers on the porch or inside in the winter. They wore dresses all the time below the knee and laced up black shoes. And their granddaughter is in a tank top and shorts..Times sure change.